A long time ago, I was in a spicy food eating contest. I just wrote up a little synopsis of how that event went, as best as I can remember, for a friend. But, it might be a good idea to post it too, before the memory completely fades... Here it is; enjoy! ----- I took third place in the Sweet Basil Thai (the Hollywood, Portland location) spicy food eating contest around 7 years ago. First round was about 15-20 people, divided into two groups, as they didnt have enough space for everyone to compete at the same time. I was initially talked into competing by a girl I was dating, who always tried to out-spice me when we ate together. She didnt even make it completely through the first round... First round had three challenges, which Im trying to remember clearly (it was a while ago, and very blurred by endorphins and adrenalin). There was a spoonful of chili paste/oil (the kind mashed up and roasted/served in the oil, not sambal or sriracha) that we had to put in our mouth and hold on our tongues for 30 seconds, then chew for 15 and then open our mouths to show we still had it, then swallow after the one minute mark. Second challenge was to chug this green curryish drink, which was delicious, more of almost a lassi with moderate spice and then finish an ice-cream sized paper cup of pad Thai noodles that had been stir fried with mostly just dried red chilies (and/or the chili paste). Third challenge was to eat as many whole chilies (fresh Thai, dried red and habaneros) out of another ice-cream paper cup in a minute or so. They scored each of those challenges and came up with three winners from each group to compete in a final round of 6 people. Oh, very important to note: we werent allowed to drink *anything* except in between the rounds, and even then, the choices werent great (I had hot tea...) While waiting for the second group to start their first round, one mid-40ish gentleman, that had been in the first group with me, started complaining about chest pains. Then he sat on the ground, eventually lying down, all the while apologizing for holding everyone up. It was endearing, but also a bit scary as we waited for the ambulance to take him away. As I said, the second, and final, round was supposed to be 6 of us, but 2 of the finalists had dropped out during the interim between rounds. To be honest, I had given great thought to quitting as well, (as there was already a seriously scary spice baby brewing in my tum tum) but considering there was now a 50/50 chance of at least getting 3rd, I decided to stick it out. It was me, two regular looking dudes and a fairly attractive woman. The round consisted of a few different challenges, but all of them were linked, so you had to finish one before you could go on to the next, and the first person to finish them all (or get the furthest before everyone else quit), would take the grand prize. Through the memory of pain, this is what I recall: - First challenge was another paper cup full of noodles and chilies, but this time it was a lot more chilies than noodles. - Second challenge was two paper cups, one full of chilies (like in the first round) and the other full of salted, dry-roasted peanuts with crushed dried red chilies throughout. - This is where I had to drop out. Remember the no drinking thing? The peanuts and chilies mixture was what I imagine swallowing spicy cement mix would be like, and the only moisture I could get was from the whole habaneros and Thai chilies... I hit my wall, and it wasnt so much from the spice, but from the disgusting stuff going on in my mouth and throat. - One guy had already dropped out by now, so it was between me, the other dude, and the woman. But wait, the woman just finished *everything*, including challenge three (which I cant even remember). What a badass! - Dude sees that I hit my wall, crowd sees that I hit my wall, starts cheering for dude, he eats a few more peanuts: takes second place. - We get our prizes (I get 10% off there for life, plus a trophy and a couple bottles of wine that I drank later that night). - Woman and I stick around to hang out with our respective friends that came to cheer us on, guy that took second place immediately leaves (to hospital? He did NOT look okay). - I may be an athiest, but I swear I saw god that night, while feeling that hot cement work its way through my guts, slowly... slowly......... ---- My biggest complaint was that it wasnt really a spicy FOOD eating contest, it was more just about eating a lot of spice, which is pretty gross by itself. After the contest was over, I did comment to the judges/contest holders that maybe they should look into using extracts (or now actual peppers with proper scoville ratings, like Carolina Reaper, Trinadad Scorpion, Ghost, etc), instead of making us eat really disgusting shit. Havent been back, but maybe I will again one of these days....
Posted on: Fri, 07 Nov 2014 02:11:25 +0000